Keryu was dangerous.

Alex didn’t need anyone to tell him that.

Keryu’s having a system was enough to make him a variable he would never be able to control.

Even the slave seal wasn’t invincible since it could be broken with a certain level of power. So, binding Keryu with a slave seal was also out of the question.

No one knew when he would counterattack.

The best way to finish Keryu was to make him expend all his trump cards before killing him.

That’s what Alex did.

He knew if someone—no matter how powerful—other than Ben were facing off against Keryu, the result would’ve been different.

After all, Keryu was being backed by the demon god. He was the hero of the demon realm.

But that cheat was destroyed when Keryu decided to change the body.

Now, Alex could kill Keryu effortlessly.

He needed to do it.

The same, however, couldn’t be said about the girls around him.

The girls were free of any blame. They never did anything wrong.

Their only fault was loving someone they shouldn’t have.

Natasha, for example, was just a random succubus picked up by Keryu, falling in love with him because of her admiration for him.

Alex didn’t want to kill her for that reason, so he decided to make better use of the heroines Keryu had.

He would erase their memories related to Keryu or anything that had happened before today and send them to the ruined city in Desolate. They could be quite helpful to Lilia, who was managing that area alone.

[Lilia needs a reward anyway,] Sophie commented, as if reading his thoughts, as he stared at Natasha, who stood silently, staring blankly at Keryu’s corpse.

Yes, corpse.

Alex had killed that guy.

Looking at him writhing on the ground, looking here and there in desperation, was too pathetic.

Now, he had an option. He could either devour the guy’s memories or system.

After all, his Eternal Devourer physique only had one spot left, which means he could only use it once before he needed to discard one of the previously devoured things to use it again.

‘Yeah, if not for her, I would’ve had to use the real Maleshia, which could’ve messed up the situation, causing the teachers’ council to step in.’ Alex replied to Sophie’s words, his eyes moving toward the corpse.

There was a short silence before Sophie’s voice echoed again.

[What will you devour?]

That question stumped him, as he didn’t know what to say.

Keryu’s system was impressive as it gave him two lives, but the memories of the future that Alex didn’t know were just as important.

‘What do you suggest?’ He asked Sophie, who, as if expecting this question, replied.

[The memories.]

‘The reason?’

[Keryu’s system only had a one-time function that revived him, so it’s no use devouring it now, but the memories are different. With those memories, we can know of things we don’t know anything about.]

Hearing her reasoning, Alex knew it would be a waste to devour the system, especially now that its most useful function was gone.

The only reason Alex wanted that system was because it would give him two lives, but who knew that once it got used, it couldn’t be used again?

‘Alright then, I’ll devour the memories,’ he decided before he turned toward Natasha. “Guard me for a while.”

Natasha, hearing those words, nodded her head with the same blank look.

Right now, she was still under his control, moving at his will, but Alex would soon let her go.

He would let the slave seal stay on her, as no one knew the future, but he wouldn’t use it until necessary.

…………………………..

In the dark throne chamber of the Abyssal Citadel, where time crawled like a shadow through cracks in obsidian, Anos Voldigoad reclined lazily on his throne.

A swirling goblet of glimmering red wine floated in the air beside him, untouched.

His eyes—deep pools of languid amusement—remained half-lidded as the flames around the chamber flickered in a slow, rhythmic dance.

He hadn’t moved in hours.

Not out of laziness—though he would certainly call it that—but because nothing in the realms truly stirred him anymore.

Wars raged. Empires fell. Even his own children scattered their legacies across the plains like seeds in the wind.

What did it matter?

He’d done enough.

Yes, he did enjoy his past few days when Alex sparred with him, but now that the guy was gone, what was left behind was boredom greater than before.

He wanted to go where Alex was and ask for another fight, but then he recalled what Alex could be doing.

Suddenly, something within him stirred.

An ache. It was sharp and final.

He blinked.

In the quiet, eternal stillness of his chamber, Anos felt it—a sudden emptiness, like a string cut from a harp, vibrating into silence.

His fingers paused mid-air, a flicker of confusion passing through his eyes.

“…That’s…”

A thin line of smoke curled upward from the space before him, coiling into a vision—uninvited, but inescapable.

Blood had been spilled.

His blood.

A fragment of the soul linked by lineage was dying.

And so he saw it.

The vision blurred to life—a battlefield strewn with ruin and flame. Crumbling walls. Distant screams.

Keryu, his son, collapsed on a cracked stone, his chest heaving, blood staining his lips.

He had the upper hand. He was winning until suddenly someone else stepped into the fight.

It was the Wandering Emperor.

He saw how he killed Keryu with his bare hands.

He saw Alex, calm and cruel, stepping in just enough to ensure Keryu’s death… but not by his own hand.

He saw the moment it ended.

The flicker of life leaving that body.

And then—

Nothing.

The vision snapped like glass under pressure.

Silence returned to the chamber, thicker than before.

Anos sat still, expression unreadable.

No fire crackled. No wind stirred. Even the wine stopped its lazy swirl in the air.

“…So that’s it,” he murmured.

He leaned back on the throne, exhaling softly as if releasing a breath he’d held for centuries.

“Gone.”

His voice wasn’t angry. There was no edge to it; only… weariness—quite unlike him.

He gazed into the air where the vision had faded, his tone low, colored by something more painful than rage—disappointment without surprise.

“I told Alex he could do whatever he wanted,” he said, almost as if reminding himself. “This was bound to happen eventually.”

He knew that Alex would kill Keryu, one way or another.

If he didn’t permit the guy, then he would’ve made sure that the blame was shifted to someone else.

Anos knew Alex enough to understand that he was capable of much more than he could imagine.

A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he stared upward, where the ceiling of his hall vanished into darkness.

“I suppose this was how it was supposed to go.”

He lifted a hand, opening his palm slowly. A single droplet of blood shimmered above it—Keryu’s essence, the last remnant of the child he once called son.

It could be used to revive him, but what would be revived won’t have an ounce of life in it.

It would be a soulless being, and Anos wasn’t desperate enough to do this.

Keryu wasn’t someone he would use this on.

Anos looked at the drop of blood for a long time, like a man looking at a photo of someone he no longer recognizes.

Then, quietly… he closed his hand.

The droplet vanished.

“I’m sorry, Cristina,” he said softly.

His voice had changed.

It was the voice of a man speaking to someone who would never answer.

“I tried to help the last of your blood in every way. I helped him survive in this harsh empire even when he was powerless. But I couldn’t stop his death.”

A long silence followed. Then, he added—gently:

“…after all, he had died the moment his body was taken over.”

Yes, the one who was in the body wasn’t his son anymore. It was someone who was impersonating his son.

He felt some regret for not saving his son, who died without anyone realizing it, but that was all he could do.

His gaze dropped to the floor, distant and shadowed.

“Whoever he was in those last moments… he wasn’t the boy you gave birth to.”

And with that, the flames in the chamber dimmed.

Anos leaned back into his throne, shutting his eyes.

There was no fury.

No vengeance.

Only a sigh.

Only a goodbye to his long-dead son.

He, however, wasn’t the only one who was feeling all of this. There was another person in the demon realm who felt that something important in their life was lost.

It was Eris.

She didn’t want to talk to Keryu anymore. She hated him.

She abhorred who was living in the body of her brother, but for some reason, she hoped that a part of her brother was still alive in Keryu.

After all, she didn’t want to lose him.

But today, when she was lying quietly on her bed, she suddenly felt a sharp pang in her heart.

She didn’t know why it came and what had happened, but tears inadvertently welled up in her eyes.

For some reason, Keryu’s image flashed in front of her eyes. The images of his childhood, of the time he used to follow her around, smiling shyly and saying that he loved her the most in the world.

She couldn’t stop those images.

But then, she noticed something.

‘Why are there no images of his adulthood?’

That question struck her harder than she thought.

Eris realized that to her, the only brother she knew of was the child who wasn’t taken over by the new Keryu.

Maybe it was because she now knew the truth, but to her, the new Keryu became nothing but a stranger.

It was painful, but it was the truth.

In the end, unable to understand what was happening or why it was happening, she let her tears flow, covering her face with her pillow.

She felt as if it was okay to let them free today, like today was the right time to let go of the Keryu she held in her mind.

Eris finally came to terms with her brother’s death.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep